The Moth: Stealing Dogs, Three's Company and a Bargain with God

“It is brilliant and quietly addictive” – The London Guardian

“New York’s hottest and hippest literary ticket” – The Wall Street Journal

The Moth is an acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. It is a celebration of both the raconteur, who breathes fire into true tales of ordinary life, and the storytelling novice, who has lived through something extraordinary and yearns to share it. At the center of each performance is, of course, the story – and The Moth’s directors work with each storyteller to find, shape and present it.

Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented thousands of stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide.

Moth shows are renowned for the great range of human experience they showcase. Each show starts with a theme, and the storytellers explore it, often in unexpected ways. Since each story is true and every voice authentic, the shows dance between documentary and theater, creating a unique, intimate, and often enlightening experience for the audience.

Moth stories dissolve socio-economic barriers, expose vulnerabilities, and quietly suggest ways to overcome challenges and see with new eyes.

Check out the Dog Days of Spanish Harlem by author Ernesto Quinonez.

The Doll Test

During the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth Bancroft Clark and his wife, Mamie Phipps Clark designed a test to study the psychological effects of segregation on black children. In 1950 Kenneth Clark wrote a paper for the White House Mid-Century Conference on Children and Youth summarizing this research and related work that attracted the attention of Robert Carter of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Carter believed that Clark's findings could be effectively used in court to show that segregation damaged the personality development of black children. On Carter's recommendation, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund engaged Clark to provide expert social science testimony in the Briggs, Davis, and Delaware cases. Clark also co-authored a summation of the social science testimony delivered during the trials that was endorsed by thirty-five leading social scientists. The Supreme Court specifically cited Clark's 1950 paper in the Brown decision.

Check out this April 28th, 2013 Youtube Experiment

To learn more read this CNN Article and the results of the CNN Study 

Strong Song: 強い歌

Carter from Cineastas on Vimeo.

Murray Carter is the 17th Generation Yoshimoto Bladesmith. Born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he traveled to Japan when he was 18 years old. He stayed in Japan for half his life and apprenticed under a Japanese bladesmith for 6 years. In this video, Murray tells his story and discusses the importance of pursuing one’s dreams.

Murray Writes:

Like many North American boys, I have been fascinated with knives and things that go 'cut' since my early childhood. As fate would have it, I ended up in Japan at the age of 18 where I fell into an apprenticeship with a 16th generation Yoshimoto bladesmith that lasted six years. Upon completion of that fortunate tutelage, I was asked to take the position of number seventeen in the Sakemoto family tradition of Yoshimoto bladesmithing. I believe I am the only Caucasian ever to have had the honor and privilege of this position.

I continued forging blades in Japan for twelve more years and in June 2001, I was awarded the rating of Mastersmith by the American Bladesmith Society, thus proving a degree of competency by Western standards. In 2005 I moved to the United States and have continued forging blades in Oregon since then. To date I have personally completed over 19,000 knives, the majority of which were one-of-a-kind pieces consistent with the kind of work done by old-world artisans.

I speak Japanese fluently and can read fairly well. I think that it would have been impossible to understand the "essence" of Japanese bladesmithing without the language ability and I am very thankful for it.

During these years I have been truly blessed to have had such wonderful customers. Many purchase additional knives while others simply stop by for a visit. This gives me an overwhelming sense of gratitude and humility. Your indications of satisfaction provides the motivation to produce the highest performance cutlery available in the world today.

Check out his business:  Carter Cutlery

Welcome to Pine Point: This Was Suppose To Be A Book

Pine Point was the townsite built at the Pine Point Mine in the Northwest Territories, Canada, which was an open-pit lead and zinc mine.  The first buildings were erected in 1952 during the original exploration and development campaign, and even before that a number of log cabins had been built in the late 1920s. The modern town was surveyed in 1962 and became operational by 1963.  The town was a joint-venture between the Canadian Government and mine owner's Cominco. It became a territorial settlement in the 1970s with private businesses and boasted a population of 1,200 at its peak. Pine Point had an elementary school (kindergarten to grade 6)--Galena Heights—and a grade 7 to 12 school, called Matonabbee School. The last graduating class was in 1988 as the mine was closing.

Cominco closed the mine in 1988, forcing the single-industry town to close. All buildings were removed or demolished, and today the site is completely abandoned, although there is still evidence of the street layout.

Pine Point is the subject of a 2011 Welcome to Pine Point, created by Michael Simons and Paul Shoebridge.

The web documentary includes audiovisual material and mementos compiled by ex-Pine Point resident Richard Cloutier for his own website, Pine Point Revisited.

Localore: Have You Considered Radio

This Is Localore from AIR on Vimeo.

Localore helps innovation at public radio and TV stations with a "full spectrum" model that blends on-air, screen, and street media.  Check out their documentary as well as their site.



Here are some of the Localore Projects:

The Making of....from the Folks at KQED in the Bay Area of California
Here Here Pop Up Radio Project:  Stories About Your Neighborhood Oakland and San Francisco
Sonic Trance:  Stories from LA's Immigrants Stories
I See Change:  Crowdsourcing Community Climate Change
Black Gold Boom:  How Oil Changed North Dakota
Zed Omegas:  High School Dropouts or....
Curious City:  Crowdsourcing in Chicago
Austin Music Map
Reinvention Stories:  Stories from Dayton, Ohio
Planet Takeout:  Boston

Interacting wuth Autism

Sensory Overload (Interacting with Autism Project) from Miguel Jiron on Vimeo.

Some people with autism have difficulty processing intense, multiple sensory experiences at once. This animation gives the viewer a glimpse into sensory overload, and how often our sensory experiences intertwine in everyday life.  Created as part of Mark Jonathan Harris' and Marhsa Kinder's "Interacting with Autism." Coming in January 1st 2013, IWA is a three-year transmedia project funded by the federal Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ). University Professor Marsha Kinder, the Executive Director of the Labyrinth Project at USC, and Mark Harris are heading a team of filmmakers and artists working to build an interactive, video intensive website that will focus on the best available treatments for autism.

Check out some of the videos from the site that are very moving:

• Gricelda and Selena
• All the Lonely People
• I Am Sue Rubin
• Mr. Twister

The video above is animated from Miquel Jeron.  Check out his Reel below:

Arcade Fire Goes Transmedia

Just a Reflektor is Arcade Fire's new transmedia music video.  Check out their normal video to see the different in approaches.

Mediastorm Fall Pechu Kucha Festival

Welcome to our Fall PechaKucha Festival 

Here is the Top 5 Most Watched Videos from the Pechu Kechu Site

Introversion by Caleb Keller

Fear, Pain and Humor by Mark Rickmier

Mediastorm New Design Songs

 All Songs are on the Mediastorm New Design Site

Joseph's Song

Christine's Song

Diamond's Song

Tristan's Song

Steph's Song

Adrian's Song

Jailine's Song

Brey's Song

Kaitlyn's Song

Zayra's Song

Amber's Song

Faith's Song  

3 Little Pigs Goes Transmedia

Dr. Pamlea Rutledge is the Director of Media Psychology Research Center.  Her recent Transmedia Case Study:  The Three Little Pigs gives a good example of how to take a story and make it transmedia.

The basic story would be told in an anchoring medium, such as a novel, TV show, or film. In this case, it’s a short story.  There are four primary characters to expand and explore: three pigs and a wolf. There are also deeper themes of hard work, planning, collaboration, family and persistence underlying the main story arc.

The first round of expansion:
Pig 1 has a blog which details the family history and complicated family dynamics that led to the pigs decision to live apart rather than together. Pig 1 also harbors paranoid suspicions of a dark figure lurking about his house and a conspiracy theory of a cover-up by local authorities that contributed to the interfamilial conflict.

The wolf has a website would give us opportunities to learn more him, the path that led the wolf to his current antisocial tendencies, and give us a glimpse of his complex inner genius, such as showing his mathematical schematics of the impact of wind velocity on the materials of straw, sticks and bricks. We would also be able to find maps of the turnip field, apple tree, local market and County Fair and strategic attack positions. We would follow the wolf as he plots and adjusts his plans at each volley by the pigs and contribute ideas and support.

The second little pig, Pig 2, takes to Twitter. Given that his house of sticks didn’t do very well under Wolf breath, he has become very interested in rebuilding with sustainable building materials and exchanges tips with his Twitter followers. He tweets breaking news during any PigLand events such as a Wolf attack. @littlepig2 walls of house bowing inward, sticks flying off roof – help

The third little pig, Pig 3, is a hardworking homebody. He keeps a vegetable garden and creates a cooking blog and cooking demo videos for YouTube shot on location in the House of Stone. His recipes, such as such as Parsley Turnips, Baked Apples, and Stewed Wolf Surprise are made using only local, organic ingredients.

The second round of expansion:  
On a Ning network, Wolf supporters form Team Wolf and contribute strategy, information, additional maps, and alternate endings and plot developments.  An Anime comic takes fans on the first little pig’s visions of a pig super hero uncovering the conspiracy, saving the world and avenging evil as personified by wolves.

Pig 2 posts eco-friendly home designs and materials on Pinterest and holds a contest for homes make from sustainable building materials

The third little pig has a cooking series shot on location from the Stone House kitchen posted on YouTube with ways to make Parsley Turnips, Baked Apples, and Stewed Wolf Surprise. He hides clues for secret ingredients in his dishes in lyrics of songs and the YouTube trailers and encourage viewers to send in their stories about home cooking and wolf encounters to be shared on a website. He publishes a cookbook with recipes, clues to the location of the remaining house of stone, and phone numbers with changing recorded messages of cooking tips and pig gossip.

Additional expansion:
The Three Little Pigs II – The Sequel
A new game called “Angry Pigs” is available for download at the Apple Store involving pigs, wolves and wind velocity.  Pig 3’s videos showcase occasional trips to the Local Market and County Fair, where additional characters can be introduced.  The pigs in PigLand can link with other story worlds, like Little Red Riding Hood or Puss n’ Boots, where there are opportunities for Wolf collusion for hard core fans.

The hypothetical transmedia version of the Three Little Pigs is not the repurposing of story across different platforms. It is the creation of a holistic narrative that unfolds in different and unique manners across different media. It allows for a dialogue between creator and participant.

Developers could decide if participant interaction, such as solving the sustainable materials problem, finding the wolf through clues and maps, or creating another character for the story, could move the story in different directions than the original version. Participants might urge the first little piggy to trust his instincts about the dark figure or create a hunter who steps up the stakes for the wolf and alters the time dimension of the wolf’s schemes.

Check out Ellliot Worley's 3 Little Pigs (animated by his dad).  

Elliott Worley's "The Three Little Pigs" from Seth Worley on Vimeo.

PechuKucha Song Presentations

Ni Pechu Kechu from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.


Untitled from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.

 
Brey's Pechu Kechu from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.

 
Fashion from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.

 
Adrian's Pechu Kechu from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.

 
Steph's Song from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.


Tristans song from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.


Diamond's Song from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.


Christine's Song from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.


Joseph's Song from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.

Maria Paredes Pica Kushu from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo.

Charlie Chaplin's Speech in the Great Dictator

Tristan sent this to me.  It is from the 1940 movie The Great Dictator.  The film starred, written, produced by the the great Charlie Chaplin.  It was his first talking picture and was released in 1940 right before the beginning of World War II.  Here is the speech below:

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost....

!/images/photos/0000/0874/Great_Dictator_Pub_140-6_normal.jpg! The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. .....

Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

November 14th, 2013 To Be Heard

To Be Heard (Trailer) from nicole films on Vimeo.

To Be Heard is a documentary about three young writers from the Bronx in a program called Power Writers.  Folks from Power Writers and To Be Heard will be presenting the projec the class on Thursday

The About Section of the To Be Heard website is below:  

Lives and language on the edge: Three teens from the Bronx tell their stories of friendship, love and struggle, and show how a radical poetry class can ignite change.  To Be Heard is the story of three teens from the South Bronx whose struggle to change their lives begins when they start to write poetry.   As writing and reciting become vehicles for their expressions of love, friendship, frustration, and hope, we watch these three youngsters emerge as accomplished self-aware artists, who use their creativity to alter their circumstances.  A verité film, intimately shot over four years, To Be Heard is the story of three friends and the love that develops between them as they evolve as artists. This “tripod,” as they call it, is bound by proximity, circumstance, and poetry. To Be Heard is also the story of how language links people. Pearl is the support and soul of the three; Karina is the passion and heart; and Anthony is the energy and physicality. In a community where friendships are kept tenuous for many reasons, these three build a bond based on language, respect, and the need to survive.  What will happen to these three kids? Will they find a way to articulate their dreams? Will that articulation manifest meaningful change? Does language contain the power to transform? Perhaps this film is simply about the lives of three kids from the ghetto and their struggle to survive. Perhaps it is also about the poet in all young people, the struggling artist in all of us, seeking to emerge. Embedded in the story of these three teens is the tale of their path as writers and a look at the source of their inspiration. That seed of inspiration comes in the form of a radical poetry class, called Power Writing, taught by a trio of outsider teachers.  Early on we meet Joe, Amy and Roland. Given the heightened volume of the educational debate these days, their message and approach merits close attention. Not a part of any school faculty or formal curriculum, these three come bearing a simple gift in the form of a motto—If you don’t learn to write your own life story, someone else will write it for you. There are very few secrets to their teaching methods, very few tricks. Their style of committed pedagogy is less about instruction and more about empowerment—simply stated, they are there to listen closely, if the writer wants to be heard.

The folks who created a transmedia extension to the film called.  Power Poetry.  Check out about Power Poetry below and how the site works.

More Pechu Kucnha's: Amber and Zayra

Helping People from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo and Amber.


Zayra's Poem from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeoand Zayra

Pechu Kucha: Faith and Victoria

Street Art from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo by Faith R.

PechaKucha or Pecha Kucha (Japanese: ペチャクチャ, IPA: [petɕa ku͍̥tɕa],[1] chit-chat) is a presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (six minutes and 40 seconds in total). The format, which keeps presentations concise and fast-paced, powers multiple-speaker events called PechaKucha Nights (PKNs. PechaKucha Night was devised in February 2003 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Tokyo's Klein-Dytham Architecture (KDa), as a way to attract people to SuperDeluxe, their experimental event space in Roppongi, and to allow young designers to meet, show their work, and exchange ideas.[6] In 2004, a few cities in Europe began holding PKNs, the first of several hundred cities that have since launched similar events around the world. As of June 2012, PechaKucha Nights were held in 534 cities worldwide.

 
Patagonia from Mediastorm New Design on Vimeo from Victoria R.